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Friday, March 19, 2010

Questionland "Does Anyone Have Advice on Moving to (and Colleges In) Seattle?"

Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 1:47 PM

Earlier this week Furien, a high school senior, asked Questionland for some serious and sincere advice:

Pretty soon I'll be graduating from High School... I was wanting to go to the University of Washington this year, but I was rejected. Honestly, I saw it coming. I still want to go there, and I'll inevitably get there if I can get my future off the ground—it's the only school in the state that offers the Post-Grad program I'm looking to go into.

Is there another school you guys would recommend I go to? Anything to help me get the hell out of here? It would be really appreciated.

sphinxemmashade came through for the win (are kids still saying that?). The answer is lengthy, but includes a lot of personal experience and covers pretty much every question Furien had (read the whole post here).

SCCC is an open admission college, meaning that if you have a high school diploma you basically just have to fill out a short admission form, turn it in and voila: you can register for classes.

Some general tips about SCCC from my experience: Daytime classes usually attract the younger crowd. I'm 22 and often one of the oldest in my morning classes. If you go at night you will see more returning students (20s-50s) and people who work full time jobs in addition to school. If you are mature and self-directed, these classes can be great because you do not have put up with as many kids who want to be spoon fed. On the other hand, if you are looking for a more traditional social college experience, the day classes will have more of your peers in them. Professors I have particularly enjoyed include Furuta (Sociology), Tutty (Psych), and Quintero (Spanish). I would avoid Bachar if possible (English).

Central also has quite a few scholarships on the table, not just for academic high achievers.

sphinxemmashade's answer is this week's Answer of the Week—it was thoughtful and full of good advice. The least we can do is give him (or her) a pizza. So congrats to both Furien and sphinxemmashade—hope you enjoy the $25 gift certificate for Pagliacci Pizza.

Comments (8) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Greg Bacher is awesome.

Horton for logic is good too.

Posted by Maestro M on March 19, 2010 at 2:04 PM

Someone helping someone else and getting recognized for it. Good news for a change!

Posted by sexy MF on March 19, 2010 at 3:03 PM

I'm surprised nobody mentioned NSCC.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on March 19, 2010 at 3:26 PM

Greg Bachar is one of the best teacher I have ever had and the class content is always unique and very diverse. Why avoid him?

Posted by mgwfr on March 19, 2010 at 4:03 PM

"sphinxemmashade came through for the win (are kids still saying that?)"

HAHAHAHA... no.

The way kids say it is "sphinxemmashade for the win."

Also the community colleges here are pretty good. SCCC gets all the attention but I have heard good things of the others.

Posted by Packeteer on March 19, 2010 at 4:12 PM

Avoid bachar!? boo!

Posted by olive on March 20, 2010 at 2:57 PM

I am an older student about to go to UW after several years at SCCC. I had some good teachers and I had other teachers who did their jobs and taught me what they wanted me to learn about the subjects they were teaching even if they didn't change my life. I have to say that I learned more from the teachers at SCCC than I did from my fellow students. At least the teachers seem to know why they are there.

Posted by jayrafter on March 29, 2010 at 11:37 PM

Bachar is a solid teacher. If you are the type of student who sits in the back of the room talking to your friends or checking your text messages, you probably shouldn't be enrolled in classes anyway, and you're not going to get much out of any class if you do.

It's annoying to be in a class half full of people who don't know why they're in school and complain about it all the time even though they chose and paid for the experience. This is par for the course at Seattle Central. If you notice at the beginning of the quarter that your class is filled with complainers or people trying to sabotage your experience that you also paid for, try to switch into a different section if you can.

The best classes I had at Seattle Central were the ones where it seemed like the whole class was into it. The worst were the ones with a lot of the types of students described above. There are a lot of great teachers at Seattle Central, it's a great place to learn whether you are just starting out after high school or returning to school after a long time away, like me. Teachers don't get enough credit for what they do and what they have to put up with year after year. Yay teachers!

Posted by Your Name Here on February 15, 2011 at 10:02 AM